the Four Horsemen Project

Mixed theatre, dance, music, poetry, & projections

An exaggerated romp through the work of Toronto Concrete Poetry collective "the Four Horsemen," this piece by Volcano Theatre and Crooked Figure Dances has toured many times and garnered numerous awards around the world, including the Best Design award form the Dublin International Fringe Festival, and multiple Dora awards (Canada’s oldest and largest professional theatre, dance, and opera awards).

Projected simultaneously onto the floor and back wall of the stage from two projectors, archival footage of the original group and animated typography based on the poetry and graphic work of the Four Horsemen vie with dancing, singing, yelling and whispering performers for the audience's attention.

Please, please, please believe the hype… 65 minutes of seamless and exuberantly integrated dance, animation, poetry and dopey archival footage… just on the right side of the madness-brilliance divide.

— Kamal Al-Solaylee the Globe & Mail

Promo Video

Design

The Four Horsemen Project uses the philosophical goal of the early sound poets themselves as its structural spine: the idea that poetry is far more than words on a page; poetry encompasses sound, breath and the human body. With this remarkable collaboration, a new generation of artists breathes life into some nearly-forgotten work – iconoclastic, brilliant, delightfully irreverent – work that set the whole world on its ear.